Live Oak: You can flood

It’s been at least seven or eight decades since Live Oak last flooded, says Sutter County Supervisor Dan Silva.

But looming flood zone re-mappings and the potential for mandatory and massive increases in flood insurance are why Live Oak residents need to be prepared to pay their share of the local match for levee upgrades, Silva told the City Council on Wednesday night.

While Live Oak was not affected by the massive Yuba City levee break in 1955, Silva noted the city was still susceptible to a flood.

“If you have been a half-mile easterly of your town, there’s a levee here,” he said.

Local governments need to raise matching funds to obtain money for levee repairs from the state and federal governments, including bond money approved by California voters last year in Proposition 1E, Silva said.

In order to help determine the best options for raising the local match, a citizens advisory committee was formed earlier this year. Live Oak appointed three residents to the 15-person panel.

The citizens advisory committee is leaning toward a special benefit assessment district as a way to raise the match, Silva said. In such a district, property owners are taxed on levee upgrades and maintenance based on the amount of benefit.

He likened the limitations on spending the money to not being able to change the color of a car, but being able to fix a blown engine.

But such assessments aren’t likely to be cheap, Silva said. Rough estimates are an average of $362 per parcel, $307 per commercial or industrial acre and $20 per agricultural acre to raise $150 million in local matching funds.

Council members expressed concerns about who would be liable if levees fail, if the county or cities would have to assume liability.

Councilwoman Judy Richards wondered if it would even be possible for the city to assume levee liability.

Residents expressed concerns about the amount and some newer residents said they were never told about the potential for flooding when they purchased recently developed homes.

But Silva said that at the current condition the levees are in, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will act as though the levees do not even exist in new flood maps, possibly making flood insurance mandatory and raising local flood insurance rates by hundreds of dollars a year.

“It is up to you, at a local standpoint, to take your destiny into your own hands,” Silva said.

Live Oak residents will have another opportunity to learn more about levee funding during a pancake breakfast in the community scheduled for Aug. 4.

Appeal-Democrat reporter Robert LaHue can be reached at 749-4713. You may e-mail him at rlahue@appealdemocrat.com.